One in five Kiwis are suffering from chronic pain, a new study has found.
Pain is the number one reason why people go visit their GP, and new health research says professionals need to do more to understand it.
Otago University researcher and lead author Dr Nicola Swain spoke to TVNZ's Breakfast this morning to discuss their findings, which were published in the New Zealand Medical Journal.
Dr Swain said, "It seems pretty simple when you're experiencing it, but the fascinating thing about pain is that everybody's pain is different, so if we have exactly the same injury, your pain and my pain might be different, so there’s no way of doctors or any medical professionals being able to tell what you're experiencing".
She explained that everyone experiences pain differently because it's "all about our prior experiences, our genetics, what's happened to us before".
"Pain is really a signal that there's some danger to your tissue, so whether what you interpret as danger varies from person to person," she said.
Dr Swain said it is important for people to understand pain in order to "be able to get the right service that we need".
She added, "Doctors, of course, need a very high level of understanding to get the right treatment to the patient and right now, they don't get enough education about that in their training".
"We don't really recommend hardening up as a treatment. The best thing, if you've got acute pain, so that's pain that you've just injured yourself or done something, is to get it treated, and that can stop it carrying on in lasting and becoming much more of a problem in your life, so it's a good idea to get an ice pack or whatever makes it feel better, and perhaps a diagnosis if you need to go and see your doctor."
Dr Swain explained how persistent pain can affect people's lives in a number of ways.
"Chronic pain – it steals life. People can't eat, they can't sleep; it affects their intimate relationships, their family relationships, [and] a lot of people retire early because of pain, so it affects all areas of life and can be terribly severe for people."
She said she would like to see a greater focus on both the research and treatment into pain in New Zealand.
"We don’t have a pain strategy, we don’t have any organised way of dealing with these one-in-five people who have pain. We only have two tertiary pain centres in Christchurch and Auckland, so I'd like to see a lot more focus on both the treatment of pain and research into what's needed."
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